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Friday, February 10, 2017

Black Grail - Mysticismo Regresivo (Re-Recorded Live Ceremony)

This version of Mysticismo Regresivo
is a "re-recorded live ceremony." There isn't much information
available as to what this actually consists of but I have answers. Apparently
Black Grail, perhaps unhappy with the sound and structure of their debut
album, wanted to approach the material from a more natural angle and include some content which was not a part of the full length version of the album. The defining pacing element of spoken word and tolling bells was absent
in the original and a separate entity has been utilized to realize these additions. This is essentially a more representative release as
to the band's wishes.Along with the re-imagined overall
structure, Black Grail provide the seeker a host of questionable aspects
to ruminate over. While seemingly promoted with the aesthetics you'd find define a
form of ritualistic black metal, I neither get much black metal, nor auditory
ritual here. More-so it sounds like Thrash with a hint of
black metal in line with a band like Mortuary Drape or Master's Hammer.
For all the spoken introductions and the reoccurring bell cue, even some
group chanted vocals, musically there isn't a ritualistic feel to this
anymore than there is any band rehearsal. Just because a band perceives
their rehearsals as if they are ritualistic or ceremonial
doesn't warrant the ritual black metal label.

Drifting away from issues of categorization and definition, Black Grail's Mysticismo Regresivois
quite creative and unique. There are a lot of original segments, ideas,
and riffs across the release. The spoken intros are interesting in that
they aren't "spooky" or "demonic." Instead, they are simply spoken,
seemingly, as anyone would speak to another and so, ironically, in a
more accurate ritualistic sense then is often touted or produced in
black metal releases. The release is heavily atonal and melodically
taxing from the outset of "Dialogo Entre..."; a lack of normality in
this regard makes mental recreation and recall difficult. Memorability is a factor. Where atonality has often
existed in extreme metal, it is often utilized in the way adverbs are
used to describe verbs. Black Grail use atonality as the actual verbs;
the actual moving and doing component of their music is atonal. Some of
the more structurally off putting pure riffs appear in "Plegaria
Catartica."

When we talk about about structure in
metal, the majority of bands utilize the same overall approaches.
Verse-Chorus is still highly prevalent but we also see linear/narrative
structures becoming more prominent in extreme and hybrid genres. Black
Grail fall into that later format, yet twist it into something new.
Using markers to signal the audience - in Black Grail's case a bell
between songs - links everything together into a single narrative and yet
also signals separation between each track. 1349 did something similar
on Hellfireand
Acheron has done this on numerous albums similarly where each track was
prefaced with cues to both link and separate. This formatting rarity
usually falls flat, as it breaks up the pacing of an album too often. In
the case of Mysticismo Regresivothe pacing is non-existent from the outset and so the bell, i.e. cue, can be appreciated as meaningful and not be regarded as a hindrance.

The promotion for the album promises
"a philosophic-spiritual perspective that you should discover." Maybe
that's what we are being given as we question numerous components of the
whole. Unsure exactly where to place the band or how to approach their
bizarre creation forces the listener to openly question categorization
as a method overall. My version of the release was a tape sent to me by
Divergent, who also sent me the Rid tape - another bizarrity, as I like
to call these 'fit nowhere' releases - a while back and I'm thankful
that he did because I will likely be coming back to this tape as
reference for other material in the future. It's a singularly unique
offering that presses the listener to look for abstract explanations for
the irregularities that we occasionally find within the metal genres. While definitely not for everyone, I can envision the appeal to veteran explorers in the genre.

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